In a famous passage in de officiis (2.26-8), Cicero traces the collapse of the Roman “protectorate” into an oppressive conqueror. The passage is as interesting for his characterization of early Roman expansion as it is for his analysis of the collapse of earlier political standards.

“Let me add, however, that as long as the empire of the Roman People maintained itself by acts of service, not of oppression, wars were waged in the interest of our allies or to safeguard our supremacy; the end of our wars was marked by acts of clemency or by only a necessary degree of severity; the senate was a haven of refuge for kings, tribes, and nations; and the highest ambition of our magistrates and generals was to defend our provinces and allies with justice and honour. And so our government could be called more accurately a protectorate of the world than a dominion . . . .

“This policy and practice we had begun gradually to modify even before Sulla’s time; but since his victory we have departed from it altogether. For the time had gone by when any oppression of the allies could appear wrong, seeing that atrocities so outrageous were committed against Roman citizens. In Sulla’s case, therefore, an unrighteous victory disgraced a righteous cause. For when he had planted his spear and was selling under the hammer in the forum the property of men who were patriots and men of wealth and, at least, Roman citizens, he had the effrontery to announce that “he was selling his spoils.” After him came one who, in an unholy cause, made an even more shameful use of victory; for he did not stop at confiscating the property of individual citizens, but actually embraced whole provinces and countries in one common ban of ruin. And so, when foreign nations had been oppressed and ruined, we have seen a model of Marseilles carried in a triumphal procession, to serve as proof to the world that the supremacy of the people had been forfeited; and that triumph we saw celebrated over a city without whose help our generals have never gained a triumph for their wars beyond the Alps. I might mention many other outrages against our allies, if the sun had ever beheld anything more infamous than this particular one. Justly, therefore, are we being punished.”

The key Latin sentence describing the early empire is “Itaque illud patrocinium orbis terrae verius quam imperium poterat nominari” (emphasis added). “Protectorate” doesn’t quite quite capture the sense of “patrocinium.” “Patronage” is better, though doesn’t quite capture the force of the Latin. John Nichols notes in a 1980 article in Hermes that the idea is hard to define, but suggests a non-legal pact between equals or between patrons and clients:

“It is generally agreed that the origin of patronage as an institution is to be found in Rome’s pre-history. During the republic, patronage, with its emphasis on protection and on the basic inequality of the two contracting parties, complemented the related concept of hospitium , which stressed reciprocity and the equality of both sides. BADIAN has argued, however, that in the 2nd Century B.C., as the dominance of Rome and of individual Roman became increasingly manifest, the theoretical reciprocity and equality of the latter disappeared and the two concepts, patrocinium and hospitium, merged. For all essential purposes, he concludes, the Roman noble treated hospites and clientes in the same way.”

Erich Gruen ( Hellenistic World and Coming of Rome ) argues that the Romans did not in fact exercise patrocinium over allied states; rather, with the Greeks they liberated and then moved on. To the extent that they employed a system of patrocinium and clientalia , they were simply follow pre-Roman Hellenistic custom.

Be that as it may, and making allowance for Cicero’s rosy view of the Roman past and his contemporary polemical purposes, his description still provides a striking hint about Rome’s political self-image.